Recycling: It’s something we’re all taught to do since the day we hit elementary school. We’ve had a couple of art projects involving using only recycled materials. We’ve probably been taught which kind of waste goes into which bin as well. But that latter part seems to be more complicated than we think.
Take, for example, a coffee cup you got from Starbucks. It seems pretty simple, right? The paper cup, the plastic lid, and the sleeve are all recyclable, so it should go to the recycling bin. Wrong. The cup itself should go to the landfill-bound waste bin, as they’re coated with liquid proofing chemicals. The sleeve should go to the recycling bin, if and only if you haven’t spilled coffee or food in it. And lastly, the lid, which, depending on the type of plastic it’s made out of, could either go to the recycling bin or the waste bin.
Source: CleanRobotics
Seems really complicated, right? It’s because of this that millions of tons of waste go to the wrong places. But we can’t blame you. How are we supposed to know what kind of plastic our Starbucks coffee cup lid is made out of? Lucky for us, CleanRobotics has made the perfect solution: meet Trashbot.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=ghqDwLIzC0Y%3Fecver%3D1
Source: CleanRobotics
Trashbot is the world’s first “smart” waste bin. It uses advanced sensor and cloud technology to automatically sort any material you throw in it to the right trash bin. It can also audit your waste generation, alert you when the bins are full, and can be updated wirelessly if your community decides to change their recycling program.
Source: CleanRobotics
The way it works is quite simple, really. You throw your trash on Trashbot’s single, open chamber. The lid then closes, and it uses a combination of cameras and sensors to find out what the material is made out of. Its custom machine-learning algorithm then makes a classification, and deposits the trash into either the recycling bin or landfill waste.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=IFH0AUOpU_8%3Fecver%3D1
Source: CleanRobotics
Also, since it uses a machine learning algorithm, the more trash it collects, the more accurate it gets. It’s a pretty cool piece of technology, if you ask us. Soon, this trash robot could revolutionize the way we recycle our materials, and no more materials would end up in the wrong landfill.
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